Changes
by GentleReader
Summary: An alternate ending to "Sparks Fly."


**A/N: Happy Sunday, everyone! Chapter Seven of **_**Brand New Start**_** is going to take a few more days to complete, so in the meantime, please accept this little piece born out of rewatching "Sparks Fly."**

**Wishing all who celebrate a blessed Easter and Passover!**

**Disclaimer: Really wish I owned HoD and all its characters, 'cause I'd put them right back on the air. Sadly, I don't.**

**Changes**

Zoe sets the crate down carefully on the rickety green table on Wade's porch. Through the door, she can see him, shoulders slumped, beer bottle in hand.

Her heart, not a part of her body that she normally thinks of in connection to Wade Kinsella, clenches painfully at this vision of him, defeated.

"_Maybe I'm tired of bein' a placeholder for George Tucker!"_

It's not true, what he thinks. And maybe she owes him that, at least.

Before she can second-guess herself, she's pushing the door open, standing just inside the jamb. He glances up at her, weary more than anything, as though it's too much effort even to be angry. The same sick feeling she had when he walked away from her on the square roils her stomach and makes her mouth go dry.

"You're not," she chokes out.

He closes his eyes, leans his head back on the couch. "What, now?"

"You're not a placeholder for George Tucker. I don't know what you _are_—or were—but it's not that."

Opening his eyes, he rolls his head so he's once again looking at her. "Would you have brought a book on a date with him?"

She winces. "I was a jerk. I'm sorry." Unable to keep herself still, she starts pacing in the small space in front of the door. "I wasn't expecting this. I thought you were bored," she mumbles, wringing her hands.

His head comes up. "You _what_?"

God, this is hard. She feels like she's walking on the edge of a cliff, or a tightrope, maybe: one wrong move either way and—SPLAT! This is why she's not good at relationships.

"When you stopped coming over…I thought you were bored, like you'd had your fun and now you were finished. I thought that's what you came to tell me yesterday."

"Did I ever look bored to you?"

"No, but I don't have a lot of experience, as you well know. Maybe we had run out of things you…like. Maybe I just couldn't see the signs." Embarrassment flushes her cheeks, and she keeps her back to him. She can hear him get up, but he doesn't come any closer.

"Zoe, I stopped comin' over because I wanted _more_ from you, not less." His voice has enough of a lilt at the end that she risks peeking over her shoulder at him. He stands there, mouth half-quirked, shaking his head at her.

She turns all the way around. "Yeah. I got that—eventually. But it was kinda out of the blue, y'know? You said from the beginning that you didn't want to be my—" she gulps—"boyfriend—"

"When did I say that?"

"Right after we first slept together!"

"That was months ago, Doc! People do change."

"I guess I wasn't prepared for that…I kinda freaked out."

"Yeah, you did." Wade runs a hand over his face. "Look, cards on the table, OK? I'm sick of hidin' this thing. I want to walk down the street and hold your hand and kiss you in public—" At the thought of this, something blooms in her chest—"But if I'm gonna put myself on the line, I want to know you're all in. Not holdin' out a piece of yourself for somebody else."

He's standing in front of her now, hands in his pockets, and he looks so vulnerable that she bites her lip with the effort of _not_ grabbing his shirt and pulling him to her. All her feelings are a jumble inside her and she can't unscramble them. He waits a beat, and as the silence stretches, he sighs.

"If that's not where you're at, then we got nothin' more to talk about." He leans over her to open the door—

"Wait." She puts a hand on his arm. "I don't know—I'm—I kinda can't breathe right now."

He's close, _very_ close, and the thought of closing her eyes and just falling into this is incredibly, powerfully tempting. But he deserves more than that—he deserves for her to be sure.

Wade tips her chin up with one finger. "Tell you what, Doc. You go home, sleep on it—let me know what you wanna do." His thumb brushes her cheek. "You know where to find me."

She swallows, nodding, and then she's out the door and down the porch steps, and everything in her is screaming to Just. Turn. Around. But she forces herself to go back to the carriage house, to try and untangle the skeins of confusion and desire and fear and something _warm_ she can't quite put her finger on. Maybe she'll make a list.

At two a.m., she's still staring at the ceiling, and all she can think about is how he's just across the pond, and the many little signals he's dropped lately that she's been too stupid to see: wanting to dress up with her for Halloween, making her black and white cookies, holding her close when she'd had a nightmare, and, more than once, a look in his eyes, something soft and tender that she could drown in if she let herself…and it's not what she expected or planned or agonized over, and it's not the picture she had in her head, but suddenly it's something she wants very, very badly.

At ten the next morning, she's back at his place, having risen early to make her preparations. He comes to the door, still in his boxers, coffee cup in hand. "Mornin'." He smiles hesitantly. "You, uh…wanna come in?"

"No," she replies, and his face falls. "Can we…take a walk?"

Wade raises his eyebrows at this unprecedented request, but nods. "I'll just get dressed."

She waits on the porch, heart hammering, til he reappears in a t-shirt and shorts, and then she leads him through the woods on the path to town. They don't talk much, and when they're nearly there, Wade puts a hand on her arm. "What're we doin'?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Not really," he smirks.

"Shut up and come on," she says, taking his hand.

She pulls him out of the path and over to the town square, where a battered brown crate sits atop a plaid tablecloth on the grass. "Are you willing to give me a do-over?" she asks, biting her lip.

"D'you bring a book?"

"Nope. Just coffee and pastries."

He smiles down at her, and there's that look again, the one she could drown in. This time, she doesn't hold back, doesn't give a thought to the people walking by and the bustle of Bluebell on a Saturday morning, but goes up on her tiptoes and kisses him for all the world to see.

"Will you be my boyfriend, Wade Kinsella?"

"Guess I have to, after that display," he grins.

Maybelline's muffins have never tasted so good.

**THE END**

**As always, reviews welcomed!**


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